


Carousels and Kisses

by agentverbivore (verbivore8642)



Series: Holiday!Verse [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adorable FitzSimmons (Agents of SHIELD), Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Holiday!Verse, Jemma's POV, Kissing, Making Out, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tumblr Prompt, summertime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3939052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbivore8642/pseuds/agentverbivore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Labor Day weekend in the Holiday!Verse, and it isn't Jemma's fault that Fitz's hands are too distracting to be fair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carousels and Kisses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anytha/gifts).



> Part of my [Holiday!Verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/181142), **before** [I'm Mechanics, He's Medical](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2542268). The only context necessary is that it takes place about a year in the future, and FitzSimmons are in an established relationship - you don't need to have read the rest of the series to understand this, particularly since it's chronologically before the rest of them.
> 
> Thank you to Anytha, for requesting this as part of my prompt giveaway!

The crust of Fitz’s fourth piece of pizza went tumbling into the trashcan and Jemma just shook her head, trying not to grin at the puppyish smile on his face. “C’mon, Jemma,” he wheedled, “it’ll be fun – and it’s the oldest, um, working carousel in the country, d-don’t tell me you’re not at least curious.”

In truth, Jemma didn’t really have a reason for refusing other than that she desperately wanted to find a dark corner someplace nearby into which she could drag him. Of course, those places didn’t really exist in the hours before sunset in Martha’s Vineyard, with the sky bright and sun shining on hundreds of over-tanned tourists. Three days from now would be Labor Day, and Americans all over the country were celebrating their last hurrah of the summer this weekend. Even Coulson had gotten into the spirit; they’d managed to take care of the 084 threatening the local peace rather quickly, and he’d decided to leave the Bus parked in a secluded field until just before dawn tomorrow morning. The team had split up, with Trip dragging both Skye and Bobbi to the nearby arcade while Mack and Hunter found a beachside tavern, and FitzSimmons had been ambling along the quaint and crowded streets of Oak Bluffs to pass the hours.

Although that had worked to distract Jemma for a time, she couldn’t quite help the way her mind kept wandering to Fitz’s hands. They’d been officially dating for a couple of months now, and although she’d been determined to give him as much space as he’d needed... she was beginning to feel thoroughly frustrated. The little ways he kept touching her throughout the afternoon didn’t help, either, his hand coming to rest on the small of her back or his fingers brushing along the underside of her arm, all of which were driving her to distraction.

At the moment, he was bouncing on his heels while waiting for her answer and she drew her bottom lip in between her teeth, trying to figure out how to acquiesce without fully giving in. (Her competitive streak wouldn’t quite let her give into him so easily.) 

“Apparently there’s a contest, too,” Fitz added nonchalantly, licking a smear of tomato sauce off his thumb, and she raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?” 

“Yeah,” he said, stepping forward and pointing to a nearby sign. “Anyone who catches the b-brass ring – whatever that means – gets a free ride.” 

Jemma laughed, leaning briefly against his chest before grabbing his hand. “Oh, brilliant, how could I possibly resist the call of extra rides on a carousel?”

He chuckled, faux-glowering as she tugged him towards the entrance and stumbling over the edge of the sidewalk. “It’s about the, uh, bragging rights, Jemma!”

Once she’d settled them at the end of the very long tickets line, she turned and, tugging on his collar, pulled him down for a sweet, chaste kiss. Pulling away before she was tempted to take it further, overly conscious of the childish giggles that surrounded them, Jemma brushed her nose against his. “I can’t resist a challenge.”

Fitz hummed in amusement, smoothing his hands down her back and leaving trails of heat in their place. “Would’ve never guessed that.”

She only smiled in response, shuffling awkwardly backwards as he shifted them forward in line, and noted that he’d been stumbling over his words far less this afternoon than he had been back on the base. Stress seemed to be a factor in the more lingering affects of his brain trauma, the verbal difficulties often triggered rather than being something that he couldn’t work past. It didn’t help that their work with SHIELD was inherently stressful, of course, but Jemma was hopeful that the more he got used to not being conscious of his new self, the less noticeable his stuttering would be. 

After what was far too long of a wait in first the ticketing line and then the actual line, they finally made it onto the ride itself, each taking a horse on the outer edge of the carousel. To Jemma’s surprise, for something that was supposed to have started running in the late 1800’s it was in remarkable condition, especially considering the young children and rambunctious teens that made up most of its clientele. The building itself would probably have benefited from a new coat of white paint – the inside walls appeared rather gray – but the ride’s red struts were bright and the paintings that circled the central pedestal seemed just as adorably rustic as they would have a century ago. Along both the inside and outside of the carousel were two long metal arms that released steel rings when tugged on by the riders; apparently somewhere within the collection of rings was the prized brass ring, and Jemma was determined to win.

Once she settled on her horse, she experimentally reached forward as far as she could, guessing that if she was quick she could snag a couple rings per go-around. Readjusting her feet in the stirrups, she was briefly grateful that she was wearing her normal skinny jeans – a skirt on this thing would have probably inevitably led to her embarrassment. Although, she suspected that Fitz wouldn’t have complained, since he was seated on the horse behind hers.

The music started, the horses slid gracefully forward, and Jemma turned to grin at Fitz, who was leaning lazily forward against his own plastic horse and gave her a wide smile. “Loser buys dinner?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, Fitz – you can think of more creative incentives than that.” Waiting just long enough for his eyes to widen at the implication of her words, she wrinkled her nose in amusement and turned back around just in time for the rings to go into play. Surprisingly, the ride actually moved fast enough that grabbing the rings was more of a challenge than Jemma had anticipated, and she was only able to get one ring for most turns, missed once, and grabbed two rings for the last two turns each. When it stopped, Jemma clambered off her horse and stopped halfway through collecting her little pile of rings to return. Neither of them had won the brass ring – that honor went to an adorable toddler whose father plucked it out of the feeding arm for him – but somehow Fitz was cradling an arm impossibly full of rings. 

“Fitz,” she said, reaching down to collect a couple rings that he’d dropped. “How the – on _earth_ did you get so many rings?” Tossing his collection into the large ring bin, he blinked at her question and then smirked.

“It’s all in the technique,” he teased, fumbling in his pocket for the extra ride tickets they’d purchased. “Want me to show you?” 

Jemma narrowed her eyes at his smugness. “Show-off.”

He held open the low, white-painted gate for her and followed behind. “Is it working?”

She turned around again once they were in line and tugged gently on his shirt collar. “You know it is, you arse.”

His grin made her heart patter, and he leaned down with his eyes focused on her lips. But rather than the kiss she’d been expecting, he stopped a few inches away, gaze fixed just behind her. Twisting around in his arms, Jemma suppressed a giggle at the sight of the wide-eyed five year old whose intense focus on them had apparently stopped him in his tracks. Fitz dropped a quick kiss to her temple and she laughed, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Feeling shy, Dr. Fitzy?” 

“I mean, y’know, they’re kids,” he muttered as they shuffled forward another few feet. “Don’t want to... corrupt them, or anything.” 

Jemma snort-giggled, burying her face in his shirt. “Fitz, they see worse than us in most television ads.” He shrugged and made a noncommittal noise as he began to toy with the strands of hair at the base of her neck. Exhaling, she consciously tried to ignore the stirrings of heat his gentle touch sent running down her spine.

When they finally made it back onto the carousel, Fitz held out a hand to help Jemma up but remained standing, reaching one arm around her to hold onto the horse’s reins. “Easier to show you this way,” he offered as an explanation, but she suspected that neither of them minded the additional excuse to hold onto each other. 

As the ride started moving, he glanced away, and Jemma impulsively stretched up to press a clumsy kiss to the side of his neck, her nose scraping against the stubble on his jaw. It was perhaps harder and less romantic than she’d intended, thanks to the carousel’s momentum, but the smile Fitz gave her in return suggested that it was the best thing that had happened to him all day. The carousel conductor put the rings into play, and Fitz tightened his grip around her as he leaned forward in a faint crouch. Jemma couldn’t stop the wide grin on her face while she watched him focus in on the rings’ approach, brows furrowed in far more concentration than truly necessary for a children’s ride.

The way his warmth pressed against her almost distracted her from the approaching metal arm, and somehow Fitz moved fast enough that she nearly missed his movements entirely. Reaching forward, he snagged a ring with each finger and then two more between his forefinger and thumb, the last two forcing him to lean so far back that he almost overbalanced and Jemma had to support him around his waist. He twisted around with a smug grin plastered across his face and leaned across her to slide the rings down over the metal rod protruding from the top of the horse’s head (provided for that purpose). Jemma just stared at him with her mouth open, warmth pooling in her stomach as he shook out his right hand and got into position to try again. 

In all her years of knowing Fitz, she’d seen him work through scientific quandaries that would defy most experts and watched him save himself and their team more times than she could count, and yet Jemma could honestly say that she’d never been more attracted to him than she was at this moment. All because of a children’s carousel game, for heaven’s sake. The next time he shook his hand out, though, she noticed a few scrapes on his knuckles from the ring dispenser, and she frowned, torn between continuing to watch and wanting to bandage him up. His next collection of rings clinked into place in front of her, and she had to physically restrain herself from reaching for his hand by tangling her fingers in his shirt, unsure whether she was more interested in patching him up or wanting his hands to hold her rather than the rings. That’s precisely when she decided that she didn’t want to wait anymore for Fitz to make the next move in their physical relationship, and she spent the rest of the ride trying not to feel too impatient for it to end.

Fitz let out a loud whoop as he twisted back around, the ride slowing as he held up the brass ring over the handful of steel ones he’d collected right before it. “Piece of cake,” he bragged, leaning down to kiss her forehead before he reached over for the rest of the rings.

Once she’d slid clumsily off the horse, Jemma grabbed a handful of the rings before he could drop half of them. “So, um, do you really want to ride again?” She peered up at him, trying not to dampen his enthusiasm.

Shrugging, Fitz shook his head. “Only if you want to try to get the brass ring yourself,” he said, leading the way to the ring box through the crowd. “But it’s hard to beat these bad boys.” He waggled the fingers of his right hand after dumping the steel rings into the box, and Jemma was briefly thrilled to note that his confidence in his fine motor skills seemed to know no bounds today.

Her own rings made a loud clanging noise as they hit the bottom of the box, and she licked her lips, tugging Fitz away from the other riders and down to her level. “I have better ideas about how to use those bad boys,” she whispered, very nearly not-laughing at the shocked choking noise that he released in response.

Cheeks flushed and having managed to get his breath back, Fitz glanced around and crouched down in front of an approaching little girl with strawberry-blonde pigtails. “Want the brass ring?” He glanced up at the girl’s mother as he held out the prize, and the older woman cooed at him for his kindness, urging the shy girl to mumble her thanks as she reached a miniature hand out to grasp the trinket. Although he brushed aside the tourist’s thanks, Jemma could tell that Fitz was pleased, and a very small part of her thought that – one day – her best friend would make a fantastic father.

Not waiting for him to ask her where she was going, Jemma linked their fingers together and dragged him behind her out of the carousel house, squinting in the late afternoon sun as she looked around. “Jemma, what on earth –” Spotting a nearby alleyway, she tugged on his hand and effectively halted his question as he tried to keep up.

Without further preamble and once they were out of sight of the general public, she spun around and pulled him against her alongside the quaint building’s wall. Her lips found his and one hand grabbed onto his hip, scooting up on her tiptoes as high as she could go but being just barely stymied by their height difference. Instead of creating the friction she would have liked, she settled for grinding against him as best she could from her height, angling his mouth open and holding him in place with her other hand around his neck. A shocked whimper faded into an eager groan in his chest, and he pushed back against her, helping to hitch her up another inch against the wall and sliding his tongue heatedly over hers.

She could feel him swell where he was rocking against her, and her breath hitched, sure she’d never been this turned on in her life. His mouth was warm and tasted faintly of diet cola, his nails just barely scraped over her back where he’d pushed his hands up the back of her shirt, and the denim of his jeans dragged across the skin bared at her navel, the fabric rough and the heat beneath it promising. Pulling back from him, Jemma gasped in air, taking in the wildness to Fitz’s eyes as he opened them to stare down at her. 

“Fitz, I – I know we agreed to wait, but, please tell me you’re ready.”

He nodded his head automatically, fingers flexing under her shirt and against her skin, then blinked – as if he’d actually just processed her words. “Jemma... a-are you sure?” 

Drawing one of his hands up between them, she traced her fingers over the knuckles that she'd seen him scrape against the ring dispenser. “You hurt yourself,” she murmured, making eye contact and trying not to smile at the utter befuddlement now written across his face. Before he could speak, she pressed her lips in light kisses along the scrapes up to the pad of his forefinger, waiting until his gaze dropped to her mouth before sucking lightly on his finger and swirling her tongue around the tip.

Fitz let out a shuddery “ _ohhhhhhhh_... kay,” a tremor running through his whole body, and she let his finger go with a soft pop.

“I’m sure, Fitz. We can get a room somewhere in town instead of going back to the Bus, I’ll just let Skye know they shouldn’t expect us until dawn.”

“Good plan,” he murmured, voice rumbling out of his throat in a way that sent shivers all the way down to her toes. But when she shifted as if to get on their way, he gave his head a sharp shake and closed his eyes, leaning forward on his arms against the wall. “Need a few minutes before we go anyplace public.” 

“Oh,” she said, covering her mouth to withhold the giggles that threatened to bubble out of her throat.

He glanced up and shot her a dark look. “This is your fault, y’know, don’t see why you’re laughing about it.”

Jemma hummed through her smile and peered up at him, tracing the buttons of his shirt. “Just imagine what I’ll be able to do to you with my clothes off, then.” Laughing at the rather desperate groan he let out before closing his eyes again, she brushed her knuckles affectionately against his chin. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll behave.” He made a skeptical chuckle and she thwacked one hand teasingly against his arm. “I could go to the pharmacy across the street,” she offered, guessing that he might be able to “recover” faster if she wasn’t standing so closely to him. “We’ll need to go there anyway, first.”

“I’ll come with you,” he grunted, stepping back from her and adjusting his jeans. “Don’t want to be the weird bloke standing in an alley by himself. Is – am I okay?” Fitz raised his hands pathetically in front of himself, and Jemma couldn’t help the fond smile that spread across her face. 

Reaching over to tug down his untucked shirt as far as it would go, she gave him a critical once-over. “Maybe I should just walk in front of you....” 

Fitz snorted. “Like that would make it any better –” 

“Do you have any other ideas?” 

“Yeah,” he shot back, and then he was pressing her back against the building again, leaving a trail of heat up her neck with his lips and teeth. “If I’m going to look like an arse anyway....”

Jemma laughed, a loud, carefree sound, and curled her hands into his hair. Fitz found a particularly sensitive spot just below her ear and she sighed, anticipation zipping through her veins. “I’m so happy, Fitz,” she murmured, almost afraid that saying it out loud would make it less real.

He lifted his head up, searching her eyes before raising his hands to cup her cheeks. “I’ve never been so happy, Jemma,” he said earnestly, all trace of his earlier mischief gone, and her smile only widened. Fitz leaned down to kiss her, then, slow and deep, and Jemma had the fleeting thought that this was almost definitely the best SHIELD mission they’d ever completed.


End file.
